


Mexico City

by Donteatacowman



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Gen, ghost story, héctor's guitar, la guitarra - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 06:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14075358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donteatacowman/pseuds/Donteatacowman
Summary: “Come to Mexico City!”  It was an old refrain by now, one Miguel had heard at least a hundred times to the point that it became a running joke among his diehard fans.The first time he’d responded to it a year or so back, when a fan asked him point-blank why he never did shows in Mexico City, he’d said, “Too many ghosts.”This is why.





	Mexico City

"Come to Mexico City!"

It was an old refrain by now, one Miguel had heard at least a hundred times to the point that it became a running joke among his diehard fans.

The first time he'd responded to it a year or so back, when a fan asked him point-blank why he never did shows in Mexico City, he'd tweeted, "Too many ghosts." Some people assumed he had an ex who lived in Mexico City, or maybe he'd gone on a bender there when he was younger. Others scoured the Wikipedia list for haunted places in Mexico City, @'ing Miguel to ask him if he'd met the ghost of Nani at the cemetery or if he'd had a supernatural experience in the metro. Some of the realists among his followers would insist Miguel was talking about how his ancestor Héctor Rivera's last known public appearance was at a dingy venue on the then-outskirts of Mexico City.

Miguel didn't know how to answer any of that, so he let people argue about it in his mentions tab without responding.

Now with every release of an album, every announcement of a tour date, he'd get some well-meaning fan pestering him with tweets of "why no mexico city :(" or "ciudad de méxico por favor ¿abril o mayo?" He used to give apologetic, polite answers, but as his music career grew by leaps and bounds, he couldn't give an in-depth response to every individual question. He'd still answer, but only with the ghost emoji. It was a nice little nod to some of his oldest fans, and confused followers would get told "lol he says that whenever someone asks fro mexico city tour dates" and be let in on the joke by other fans.

The original, infamous "Too many ghosts" tweet was pinned to the top of his profile page. Some of his fans even wore ghost emoji snapbacks or shirts to Miguel's live performances. Miguel never thought he'd wind up autographing this many ghosts.

At this point, explaining the "ghost" that Mexico City had for him would be ruining the joke.

Which suited Miguel just fine, because he never planned on explaining it to anyone.

* * *

Miguel jostled in place and sent a worried look to the guitar case on the seat beside him. This was supposed to be a main road, wasn't it? How was he hitting enough bumps to rattle the fillings out of his teeth? He'd lovingly packed his guitar away securely with an attention to detail that his abuela hypocritically called "excessive," with padding and straps and a gadget that claimed to keep the air inside the case at optimum humidity. It was a historical artifact, after all, even if it belonged to the Riveras for good after a short legal battle Miguel had incited nine years ago at the tender age of twelve.

More importantly, it was Miguel's physical connection to Héctor. This was the same guitar that "Remember Me" had first been played on. It was important.

 _Too_  important to be thumped and shaken around like this! Miguel scowled at the road. Traffic had thinned out since he'd started driving into the city, but that might not be a good thing. He was on his way to what was  _supposed_  to be a pretty big venue-his biggest performance yet. Miguel had budgeted in some extra travel time to account for the traffic, but there were barely any other cars around. He was making great time.

...Assuming he was going the right way.

Miguel spared a glance at his phone, checking the navigation marker. The arrow illustrated him driving along a huge highway. Maybe the map was outdated? He chewed the inside of his cheek in thought, then reached forward to play with the radio knob. Hopefully a traffic report would come on soon.

The gentle guitar picking that had been floating through the air was abruptly replaced by the fading notes of "Remember Me"-de la Cruz's interpretation, anyway-and Miguel made a face of disgust as the stolen song ended. The radio announcer spoke over the music. "Aaaand that was 'Remember Me' as originally performed by our very own Ernesto de la Cruz!"

Miguel rolled his eyes, raising his fingers from the steering wheel between his palms. "Originally performed," he said sarcastically to the radio, which ignored him. This kind of enthusiasm for de la Cruz was distasteful, but it had been nearly a decade since de la Cruz was revealed as a song-stealing fraud. And the murder which Miguel  _insisted_  took place could never be proven. People didn't resent the scandal as much as they used to. Nowadays, de la Cruz had tons of detractors and some die-hard fans, but most people were somewhere in the middle. "I guess he wasn't the greatest guy," people would say, "but you have to respect his work! He put so much passion into his performances!"

Miguel didn't have to respect  _anything_  de la Cruz had done and he liked to say as much.

But the DJ was still talking. "-celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of de la Cruz's most famous film,  _El Camino A Casa_! Featuring a live tributary performance tonight in Zona Rosa, at the corner of Calle de Recuerdos and Hermandad Sur."

Zona Rosa-that's where Miguel was going. So traffic  _should_  be even worse than he had planned. But Miguel was still puttering along a bumpy street in his oversized truck. He could barely tell that he was in a city.

"Watch him seize his moment," the DJ added. The tagline felt ominous to Miguel, who grabbed the volume knob and turned it low as the opening of "Es-Toy" began to play. Whatever this local station was, it wasn't going to help him.

The buildings passed few and far between. It was like he was driving around the countryside or something. Miguel felt something heavy in his gut, a sense of dread at the creeping realization that he was getting himself lost. One more glance at his phone showed that the GPS hadn't updated his location in 20 minutes.

The truck kept putt-putting forward. Miguel squinted at the buildings up ahead, trying to find something with a parking lot. A gas station? A delivery place? Somewhere he could ask for directions. But for the next mile there was nothing but dusty driveways and a desolate train track (which Miguel crossed slowly, carefully grabbing his guitar case and whispering some sweet nothings to soothe it through the rattling bounces. He may have encouragingly patted the top of the case once they both survived the endeavor). He was almost ready to believe Mexico City had been plunged into a previous century when he finally spotted a empty lot beside a building and eagerly pulled in.

He checked his phone one more time. No change in the GPS. He grimaced and climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him and locking it carefully before looking the building over.

It was a little bar, some kind of dive. In the early afternoon, a place like this should have someone in it, even if his car was the only one in the lot. Maybe the staff lived nearby? He was already cursing his luck as he grabbed the door handle, twisting it and expecting it to be locked. But it opened easily, swinging open in an invitation to a dark building. Miguel shaded his eyes, looking inside, but there was movement there. Some dim lights. The place wasn't exactly hopping but it was open, so he hesitantly entered. He couldn't make out much, his eyes still adjusting.

"You want a drink?" a gruff voice said right in front of him.

Miguel practically hopped out of his skin. "Ah-ah, no, I've got to drive after this," he said defensively. But then it sunk in that he was talking to an actual human being in this godforsaken place. His mouth screwed up into a smile. "I'll still tip you though! If you can give me some directions?" Miguel gestured at the door, holding up his phone. "Sorry, my phone's being screwy. Is this the way to Zona Rosa?"

A clink and a clatter was his answer. Miguel's smile faded as the seconds ticked on and he got no answer from the person on the other side of the bar. "¿...Señor?"

"30 pesos."

Miguel looked down at the bar. "Oh! I said I didn't want anything to drink." There was a shot already poured for him. "Thank you though. Like I said, I'll still pay, I just need to know where I am." No response again, and he weakly added, "Or at least the address?"

"Drink," said the bartender, and it wasn't a request. "30 pesos."

Miguel let out an uncomfortable noise, digging around in his pants pocket for some change. "I'll just… figure it out myself. Thanks for your help," he offered, because at this point, he'd rather drive in circles and be late for the performance than rely on this guy. He put some money down on the bar and turned around, searching the room for anybody else he could talk to. The place was abandoned. Miguel let out a shaky sigh, pushing the door open and wincing from the daylight in his eyes.

A hand grabbed at his arm and Miguel let out a screech.

"You should've drunk it," said the bartender.

Miguel stammered. "What?"

The bartender didn't repeat himself, but he thankfully let go of Miguel's forearm after pressing a creased paper into his hand. Miguel yanked his hand back, shaken, but the man closed the bar's door with a wooden  _thunk_.

Miguel backed away from the bar, smoothing out the colored paper against his thigh and peering at it.

"ONE-NIGHT ONLY. TRIBUTARY PERFORMANCE. 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EL CAMINO A CASA. WATCH HIM SEIZE HIS MOMENT." The address was printed at the bottom alongside a grainy picture of de la Cruz.

Trash. The paper was a flier for trash. Miguel flipped it around, hoping for a hand drawn map on the back or directions or something, but the other side was blank. In a flash of temper, he crumpled up the flier and threw it against the wooden door.

Which he only now realized was covered in fliers for the De la Cruz event. He hadn't even noticed at first but they were plastered on like wallpaper, criss-crossing and overlapping and nigh illegible from the sheer volume of them. "I'm not going to a  _de la Cruz_  concert!" he said to the door angrily, not caring whether the bartender behind it heard him. He stomped off to his truck, kicking up dust with his handmade Rivera leather shoes, and kicked his own tire when he realized there was another of the fliers tucked beneath his windshield wiper.

Who could even have put it there? He was only gone for a minute!

"Hello?" he called down the road, trying to mask the frustration in his voice. Receiving no answer, he shoved the key in the truck door and slammed it behind him, taking a moment to rest his forehead on the wheel and calm himself down.

He'd just have to go back the way he came, Miguel decided eventually. It was a time waster but it was better than following this road to nowhere. With a grumble and a sputter, his truck pulled out of the dusty lot and onto the road again as he drove back in the direction of Santa Cecilia.

The radio turned on with the car, but no traffic updates or even local station announcements played. Miguel turned it off, tapping out a rhythm against the steering wheel when the silence got overwhelming. There still weren't other cars on the road, but if nothing else, he could tell by the sunset's position that he was heading back north.

His phone went off with a trilling rendition of "Poco Loco," which interrupted Miguel's thoughts but made him smile. He looked down at the phone on his lap. The number wasn't recognized but the area code was for Santa Cecilia, so it was someone he knew. Steadying his grip on the wheel, Miguel used a free hand to answer the phone and put it on speaker. "¿Bueno?"

" _One_ ," said a voice. It was garbled.

"This is Miguel Rivera," he said impatiently. "Who is this?"

" _One night only_."

Miguel didn't recognize the voice and started to fumble with his phone.

" _Tributary performance_ ," said the stranger. Miguel had been trying to hang up, but there was a desperation in the tone that made him second-guess himself. " _Hundred year anniversary! El Camino A Casa!_ " The person was gasping for air.

"Hello? Do you need a doctor?" Miguel said, eyebrows creasing together as he tried to keep his eyes on the road. This person was clearly getting frantic.

" _Watch him seize his moment!_ " A choking sound accompanied the last words.

"Can you hear me? Where are you?" Miguel said after the person fell silent. But all he heard was static. He strained his ears. Was that a faint watery sound? Maybe the person left the water running? Or they were near a stream? " _Hello?_ "

He pulled the truck over, parking and pushing the button for his hazard lights. He unlocked his phone and scrolled through it. He could still hear static on the other end, but his phone wasn't showing any ongoing call. "Hunk of junk…" he muttered. "Hey, if you can hear me? I'm gonna restart my phone. I'll find your number and give it to emergency services, okay?"

Still just static and the distant sound of liquid being poured. Miguel held down the power button until the phone shut off and started up again. As he waited for the screen to light up again, he examined his fingers. "Tonight's been so weird. I'm not cursed again, am I?" he said to himself. He meant for it to come out like a joke, hyperbole, but it felt sincere when he said it. He laughed, then grimaced, glancing up and down the road for another car. Still nobody there.

As soon as his phone woke up, he checked his previous calls. The Santa Cecilia number didn't show up. Miguel sat there guiltily. He'd just heard somebody choking, hadn't he? Shouldn't he do something about it? But even if he called someone, what could they do about it? What would he say? "Someone in my area code might be sick, you should check it out, and maybe they're near running water somewhere" sounded more like a psychic tipping off a cop hotline than a real emergency call.

Miguel stared down at his phone, willing it to provide him solutions. It remained intransigently unhelpful. With a sigh, he opened up navigation again. His GPS had completely given up on even guessing where he was.

...He was so lost right now. He couldn't help himself, much less whoever was choking on the phone.

Miguel rubbed his forehead, sitting in his truck as the sun set on his left. He opened up his Contacts tab, scrolling to his agent's number.

Thankfully, she at least picked up and answered like a normal person which Miguel almost didn't expect at this point. "Verónica? Miguel. Yeah, I'm on my way to the performance-no, look, I've run into some  _issues_."

He paused for her answer and laughed at it in self-deprecation. "Mhm. Lost in the big city, yeah. Or lost outside it? I'm sorry, I just don't think I'm gonna make it in time-yeah. Okay, sure." He pulled the phone away from his ear, turning the speaker on. "Can you give me that address again?"

The woman longsufferingly answered in a voice tinned by the phone speaker. " _It's in Zona Rosa. Corner of Calle de Recuerdos and Hermandad Sur. If you ask around for directions to Colonia Juárez, I'm sure someone-_ "

"No, no, that's not right," Miguel said, shaking his head at the phone and patting down his pockets. What had he done with that flier? It probably had that address-no, damn it, he'd thrown it away. "That's the address for the de la Cruz thing."

" _No-o-o,_ " his agent said slowly. " _I wouldn't book you near a_ de la Cruz  _event, Miguel._ "

"No, I swear, I keep seeing ads for some hundredth anniversary for one of his movies, there's supposed to be a cover band and everything-that was  _definitely_  the address!"

" _I'll double check_ ," she said dubiously. Miguel heard typing in the background. " _...No, there's nothing like that coming up. Not a live event, anyway_."

Miguel shook his head. "What…" He threw his head back, staring at the ceiling of his truck. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Either way I need to get back to the road. Can you look that up for me too?"

" _I'm not getting paid to be your GPS, Miguel_."

"¿Por favor, Verónica?"

She grumbled. " _Since you asked so nicely. What street you on?_ "

"I think I'm still on Eje Uno Poniente. Or maybe a back road or something. It's super empty, like I mean  _nobody_  on the road."

" _No traffic in Mexico City? You're definitely lost_."

"Yeah, thanks."

" _Just come back the way you came. Any of the big roads should have obvious signs_."

"Right." Miguel looked over at his guitar case. "I'm sorry, I'd be super late even if I knew where I was now. I think I'm gonna focus on finding the road home."

"Y _ou're not famous enough to get away with canceling appearances yet_ ," the agent chided.

"Hah, yeah, I… I'm sorry. There's something not right going on here." Miguel frowned. "Tell them I'm sick. Like, violently sick."

" _You want me to sign a doctor's note too?_ " she said.

"Sure. Better yet, I'll just call them myself." Miguel made some fake barfing noises into the phone.

" _How old are you again?_ " He snickered. " _I'll call them, but they're gonna have to give refunds and you'll have a lot of unhappy fans to deal with_."

"I'll worry about fans when I'm back in Santa Cecilia. Thank you," he said. After some brief goodbyes, Miguel hung up and pulled back onto the road. The street was as dark as his mood was getting. Being stranded in the middle of nowhere at night was not his idea of a good time.

And a rocky wall, barely illuminated by his headlights, was rushing at him. He twisted the wheel to the right, swearing as he scraped his bumper. That was a sharp curve in the road with no warning signs or lights. It could have killed him if he'd been going faster. What  _was_  this place?

He slowed down, watching the side of the road as buildings began to cram themselves around him. He was in town now, he guessed, or at least the outskirts. But he definitely wasn't on a main road. His supposed highway was quickly narrowing into an alleyway, but his truck was unwieldy and wide and Miguel didn't find a place to turn off the road. He didn't even have enough room to do a U-turn.

And then he felt something against the side of the truck. And heard the grating noise of metal against cement. "Oh, no," he said, pushing his brake against the floor. He threw the car into reverse, but the truck didn't move. "Oh, no, no, no no no!" He dropped his head on his steering wheel. The elongated honk reverberated against the sides of the alleyway like a music note.

Miguel threw open the door, shimmied his way out of the truck, and pulled at the back of the bumper. Then pushed at it with his shoulder. Neither one managed to budge the vehicle. Miguel struggled and sweated and shoved and kicked for a quarter hour without success before he gave up and squeezed back into the driver's seat.

He dialed the most recent number. "Verónica," he said as soon as the other line picked up. "I'm definitely not showing up tonight, cuz, and don't ask me how, my truck is stuck, are you anywhere near, or do you know anyone nearby here, or anything, because I'm sort of up shit creek without a paddle."

His agent didn't answer. Miguel checked the phone to make sure he'd called the right number. " _Hello?_ "

There was no vocal answer. Just liquid being poured. It was louder than it had been for the weird call before, as if someone was emptying a bottle of water right beside the mic.

Miguel hung up.

He had an emergency tow number on one of his documents in the glove compartment and he called that too. The same noise was his only answer.

Miguel restarted his phone again, just in case, and tried to call home. Let them know what was happening. The sound of pouring liquid was all he got.

He tried one more call: an emergency line. The same running-water noise answered him, but this time a recorded song played almost inaudibly in the distance.

Miguel hung up when he realized it was playing de la Cruz's recording of "Remember Me."

The fact that he would have to leave his car wasn't one he particularly wanted to confront, but he was sore and restless and his nerves were pulled tighter than the strings on Héctor's guitar. He opened his door, then looked over at the guitar case. Would it be safer in here, or with him? Miguel supposed that if something happened to  _him_ , the safety of the guitar wouldn't be paramount. And he didn't know how long he'd be away from the truck.

So he slipped his phone in his pocket, leaned his seat back, and took the handle of the guitar case. He stepped backwards out of the truck, then carefully, _carefully_ maneuvered the guitar out. It got stuck briefly, scaring Miguel with thoughts of splintered wood and broken strings, but budged agreeably with a little wiggling.

Miguel let out a breath of relief, hugging the guitar to his chest. He grabbed his phone again for a flashlight and started walking. And walking. And walking.

In Santa Cecilia, there was room to breathe. The houses weren't all squished together like this in an alleyway that seemed to go on forever. There was finally a break in the alley, a side street that he could duck down, and with joy Miguel realized there was even a  _street sign_ on the intersection, a freaking  _street sign_ to tell him where he had wound up. A rusty, coppery street sign for Calle de Recuerdos. The sign underneath it naming the new road was so iron-eaten that it wasn't readable, but the chill down his spine and the H-------- S-- initials told Miguel all he needed to know.

This was his performance address. No, the tiny town, the empty streets, this was all  _wrong_. This address wasn't meant for Miguel's performance.

This was  _de la Cruz's_  performance.

Miguel backed against the side of the alley wall, clutching the guitar. He heard it. He heard it already. A gurgling sound, faint music on the radio. He stayed frozen there, waiting for the sounds to fade, but they only seemed to get louder. All at once Miguel decided he had to press forward, feeling as if there was something terrible nipping at his heels and trying to catch up to him. An empty street stretched into a cloudy, unlit horizon. There was only one door Miguel could see and it wasn't until he had ducked into it with a heaving chest that he realized how suspicious he should have been about its appearance.

"There he is!" The man inside sounded jovial, kindly, welcoming. "My great-great grandson!"

"I'm not, we both know I'm not," Miguel said. He looked deeper into the room. It wasn't anything special. A plain room. Two beds. A table. A bottle of tequila. A pair of shot glasses.

"Remember Me" was still playing somewhere behind Miguel, but the sound of pouring liquid, _that_ came from the skeletal hand barely distinguishable from the shadows right in front of him.

"My boy, you're playing my music! On my guitar! Why, if you weren't my grandson, that would be  _theft_."

Miguel's feet were rooted to the spot. "P-p-p-" He cleared his raw throat. "Papá Héctor's. Not yours. You're the thief!"

"Such distinctions don't matter in the end," de la Cruz said conversationally. He raised one of the glasses, passing it over into Miguel's hand. Miguel gripped it hard. "They didn't for  _Héctor_. Not after he was dead. And they won't for  _you_." He lay a hand on the guitar case, locking eyes with Miguel. Those piercing eyes were the only part of his face Miguel could see, and they didn't crinkle when de la Cruz cheerfully added, "Salud."

A twisting pain blossomed in his stomach at the word. Miguel had no presence of mind to attribute it to anxiety over poison. His hand shook. He watched, horrified, as the glass seemed to raise to his lips of its own volition.

De la Cruz's grip on the guitar case tightened. And he pulled.

Miguel's hands unclenched in response. With relief, he heard the shot glass shatter, felt its poisoned tequila splash all over his feet.

The guitar case was yanked out of his hands. Earlier in his life, Miguel would have hesitated. He would have grabbed for the guitar and fought for it. He would have risked his life for that piece of polished wood.

He wasn't a kid anymore, though. He knew what to do, what Papá Héctor would want him to do: He got the hell out of there.

Miguel was running through the street halfway down the block when he was choked by the collar of his shirt, stopping him mid-step. He twisted around in de la Cruz's immovable grip, clawing at the skeletal fist that had grabbed him.

"You think I wanted  _this_?" de la Cruz hissed in his ear. "This  _guitar_? This is how you watch me seize my moment? This thing is  _useless_  to me now!" The dead man threw the mangled remains of Héctor's guitar to the ground. As the instrument fell, the radio music Miguel had been hearing abruptly cut off in a screech of static. "What I came back for is  _you_. I'm going to kill you right here in the streets of Mexico City, Miguel. Just like I killed your great-great-grandpa. And I'll leave you in  _this_  gutter." Miguel strained away as de la Cruz swung him to the side of the road. The momentum of the movement tore Miguel's shirt collar. " _Right. Where. I. Left._ Him _."_

With a push and a rip, Miguel broke free. If de la Cruz had anything else to add, Miguel never heard it. He didn't stop running until he'd reached a train station.

* * *

Miguel's Twitter was about his music. Tour dates. Locations. Promotional clips. The de la Cruz scandal was old news and it rarely came up. Miguel dedicated his music to his great-great-grandfather but otherwise Héctor was rarely mentioned by people on Miguel's Twitter feed.

That's why Miguel didn't have a canned response in mind when a user tweeted, "Went to the zapateria in Santa Cecilia yesterday & they said they used to have hector riveras guitar. Not there anymore. Whered it go?"

Miguel thought it over, staring at the screen as his hands hovered above the keyboard. Some kind of answer. That question deserved some kind of satisfactory answer. He typed one answer that went well above the 280-character limit. Deleted it. Wrote out another. Then he deleted it too.

He typed out a single ghost emoji and hit "reply."


End file.
